today I want to talk about how to get that swirly bokeh effect using some
pretty cheap lenses so maybe you've seen some pictures where
they have that nice swirly bulk in the background and you know those are facts
that you can do in Photoshop you know with some filters and things and how are
you can do it manually yourself by layering pictures and twisting them a
little bit but you know that's that's a ton of work and the end result i don't
think it's as natural as you know if you were to do it yourself up with one of
these cheap lenses there are lenses designed specifically for that poorly
bokeh effect for example I think lensbaby has one it's called the twist
60 and it's fine for you know nikon but it's like you know and canon
mount and have a sony mount then you can adapt it to micro four-thirds but
you know that's three hundred dollars and you know that there's another lens
called the petzval lens and that's that beautiful land made of all brass and and
you know it's got these neat little iris things that you drop in for
different kinds of bokeh effects, but that thing is like I think I saw it for
eight hundred dollars.
Anyway I'm not talking anywhere near that kind of money
what you want to look for are these little CCTV lenses they're mostly
prevailing on ebay i think amazon has them now too but I bought all of mine
from ebay and I you know this is a 25 millimeter f 1.4 ccTV lens and you
know the they're known otherwise the c mount lenses they you know so they come
with an adapter ring or you know i would highly recommend when you get these get
them together with the micro four-thirds adapter ring because its purely
academic what I read was these c-mount lenses came in different thread sizes
and different diameters on the other end here and if you don't get the c-mount
to micro four thirds lens mount together with lens mounts may not be able to use the
lenses that you have again is something i read on Wikipedia and it purely
academic.
I bought three of these lenses and all three of them fit on the same
amount so this one here is my 35 millimeter f 1.6.
I mentioned this 25 1.4 this is another 35 millimeter F 1.7 and
I don't recommend this one in particular i recommend getting this one
if you can find it and i'll put a link down below as if they're still available
take a look after i finish this video this this lens i really like and and i
use this ninety percent of the time and you know just to compare that to my 35
millimeter f 2 ziess over here just to give you some some perspective you
know the reason these lenses are so small is because they were designed for
an even smaller sensor than the micro four thirds.
So that's why i can get a really fast small prime you know and
mounted on here and and that's also the reason you get that swirly bokeh effect
because the circle of light that comes out of these is a little bit smaller
than the standard micro four thirds lens and that's that's because again it was
made for smaller sensor and what happens is as you go outside of that circle
light you start seeing all the defects you know chromatic aberrations and and
but that but that's what causes that swirly bulk effect of these
imperfections that you start to go outside of that circle light and that's
why you know these lenses are so big is because they're trying to design these
to be sharp corner to corner and you know for full frame sensor and
that's not what you want so that's why these are really kind of
neat because because these lenses would find for the CCTV cameras you know like
those ones you see in the banks looking at you and in parking garages look at
the monster this there's no requirement for that flange distance like you see on
this adapter here and once you mount this to your lens and I never like to
take it off I just don't like the idea you know this metal grinding and
twisting on here but once you mount it on here this is just like a native land
for the Micro Four Thirds system so you can buy a couple of them and never have
to change the lens months you can just put the lines on now for this one's i
also like it because i can put on the lens hood the coatings on these lenses
are just awful you're going to get flare and ghosting and and and all kinds of
things other than the swirly bokeh so if you could put it gets get the lens hood
for it sometimes they sell it with the lens
hood I've seen the whole kit lens hood included with the amount you know for
thirty-five dollars which is like out on this one but if you saw the intro to
this video and all my videos this is the lens i have mounted on the camera on my
tennis and as you can see i mean i think it's looks gorgeous on here and that's
that's not why use this one's a lot i like the 35 millimeter focal length and
you know the effective 70-millimeter for just night general shooting when I go
out walking in the park and stuff and it's also they're very fast so
this is this is a great length the next ones i would recommend is this twenty
five-millimeter half 1.4 CCTV Linus email i think this is a fujian but it
may have different names online i don't know it you know i'll put a link down to
the one that i bought this is like sixteen or twenty dollars and then if
you get it with the ring adapter might be like 25
the only problem with this lens you can't put a hood on it it has rings that
are written here but I think they're just ribs I don't think you can actually
put a foot on it so you know but it's so small I just put my hand over it like
this and that's not usually take care of any kind of flaring but I get the other
thing i did and I'll do a close-up over here a little piece of silver duct tape
right here kind of mark where the aperture areas so that's 1.4 and as I go
up you know goes as high as mine i guess and the focus ring is very simple just
near and far and it you know which is pretty much sums it up right
ok so that's that let me show you a couple of pictures from each of these
lenses and you know for 25 bucks i mean these costs less than some of the
filters i bought some other lens so what you know what one of the first pictures
I'm gonna show you i took is when i took with this lens here this is a the 25
millimeter f-14 and let's see take a look at this bust of George
Washington i took this at the George Washington masonic and inside so if
you're doing portraits you know you can see the center is very very sharp and
then as you go out towards the the background you start to get a very
subtle subtle sorely bokeh effect and to get that swirly bokeh effect you really
need to have more trees and twigs and you know you you really need a messy
background and that's when you kind of get the best effect you know messy
background like trees and leaves are really good because you get a little
little bit of light peeking through the leaves and then you got all that
business and it really makes a really nice effect if you look at the lensbaby
site you know they have some pictures there of their twist 60 lens and you
know they're much better photographer than i am but you know you always see
them you see the pictures would be hanging christmas like some things and
it really kind of accentuate that swirly bokeh and I you know I don't do things
like that but you know these either actual pictures so this next picture is
of a Model T Ford that I took at the national harbor and they had this thing
sitting out there and you know you really couldn't ask for more perfect
subject for this kind of land because this land is giving me kind of that
vintage old-school you know old camera kind of look naturally right and all I
could to this picture really is just apply a antique color you know happy or
something you know to kind of give it that that vintage look at the Fort Lee
book and everything else was just naturally straight out a camera through
this land another nice picture eyes but you know
that i like is this one here of a smokehouse and you can see kind of in
the background the trees are just slightly blurred and
this little hint of scoreless kind of going on so the effect with this lens is
a little more subtle than with this lens but again the center is just really it's
really tax sharp and I did some task comparing it directly this 35-millimeter
against my ziess 35 millimeter and in the center this is
virtually as sharp.
I mean you have the pixel peep like four hundred percent
to really see the difference between these two and and you know this one had
a little better contrast and at f/2 this lens is certainly sharper than this one
this lens here i have to get down to and I marked it with just a little Sharpie I
marked it but this ones i have to get down to about f 2.8 and then I still get
that swirly kind of soft bokeh background but you know the contrast and
the color really pops right around 2.8 this lens here
umm again it's not the same thing around after f 2.8 the contrast in the
color really start to pop but you still get that nice swirly background and I
just show you a couple more pictures real quick for example with this lens
the 35 millimeter here is like the normal shot on a this caterpillar i just
happened to catch while i was walking along and here's a kind of my final
image i cropped in tilted a little but you can see all the little individual
hairs a little strands of that I don't know punk rock kind of thing going on
with this caterpillar and I was just really amazed
with how sharp this lens is and you know the manual focus and everything but you
know you can focus peak and and just eyeballing zoom in right to get the best
sharpness focus peaking can be just a little awesome time and you know but
thats that's a whole nother video right ok one or two more i'm going to show you
one more that I did using a look like I use this lens again this line is I used
wide open at 1.6 for this picture and the reason i point this one out is if
you look closely at the boca it's almost got kind of a what they call a soap
bubble boca where you know the the light is kind of ring a little bit like that
bubble and that fast in effect that you really can only get from really old
vintage lenses and I seen much much better pictures and I take using you
know really amplifying effect i was a better photographer i could probably get
that using this land but this is what i could do but I i show you this picture
not so much for that that bubble bokeh effect but also because you know where
else you're going to get a fast time have 35 f 1.64 like $35 just let me
shoot this picture and I actually i use this tripod and set it down next to this
little flower thing with this lens and i was able to shoot like an iso 200 and
1.6 and it was very very dark there and it just wouldn't have been possible
without a nice that's prime like this so for thirty-five dollars you know you can
really i think expand your photography you know without
spending a fortune you can then let me show you one more
this is more of a wide landscape shot and using this lens and as you can see
the swirly bokeh do not so much in these kind of shots I probably stopped it down
it's hard to tell because it doesn't record any of the data I probably stop
sounding about f4 5.6 to get this shot but you know the color the clarity the
contrast everything is still really really good for such cheap land so you
know let's let's look at one more this one shot with again this lens and the
happiness for the thing I really love this land in this shot this is a from
the george mason of George Washington masonic from the steps and you can kind
of look down and see arlington down below are not on the alexandria virginia
and it almost had sort of a tilt-shift lens effect you know kind of looks makes
everything kind of look miniature when you when you could take a wide shot like
that so that's that's another reason i love this Lanza's is I'm getting sort of
a death to the to the picture that you wouldn't get normally when they're
trying to be sharp corner corner like most of the problems that you survived a
modern lineville and and you know I feel like for me it was is it just a pleasure
enjoy to use for my friend they kind of got sick of my swirly bokeh toy camera
look and and when I went out nice shot with like a normal 25 millimeter prime
they were like so happy to see like a normal picture but so you know you can
go crazy with it is all i'm saying is like the even if you're doing this
professionally you doing portraits or weddings
whatever we sprinkle a little bit of these swirly bokeh type affect them they
really pop I mean it really i think we'll add to your portfolio in a way
that you you wouldn't be able to get in other lenses and and then that's that's
that's the whole point of this is really I want to help you to kind of expand
your photography from you know just normal things that you see where people
are telling you buy the most expensive lens sick my god did you see did you see
that the i don't know i was looking at length from my nikon 1 of 5 millimeter
they want like 2 yeah that's that's not happening but
anyway uh one more quick one of the flower you know you can get up real
close similar to the caterpillar one I took that
one with the 25 millimeter and you can kind of see the swirly bokeh so again
this 25 millimeter has the best fully focus effect over this one but this one
you still got that effect but it's a little more subtle and it you know as
soon as i can use this foot i get a little more pop in the pictures with the
contrast and stuffing with this one you know if you're in a shaded area like
this other picture and you'll be fine or you like I said you just put your hands
so anyway up when you put these lenses on just one more tip is to go ahead and
program if you have a pen I for one pm-5 mark 2 or the new em1 you can program
the the exif data and to name these lenses as well as a tune the image
stabilization sorry about that to me and stabilization to work with the camera so
now you have an image stabilized you know 25 millimeter at 1.4 prime and i
have a video that i made before this one I'll put a link down below on how you
program in tune and adapt lens is to work with the pen a for any omd camera
practically ok that's it basically if you like this video i'll go ahead and
hit the like button down below let me know you guys are watching and I really
appreciate it i plan on making some more videos with some of my experiences
particularly the ones where you can save a few bucks and still get some pretty
neat things going on like I want to talk about this
the stupid strap in another video maybe but in any case go ahead and subscribe
if you want to see some more videos from me
let's get out there and shoot ok thank you for watching